News Flashes

At its recent TechEd conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft announced new innovations from the SQL Server team. The next release, SQL Server 2008 R2 (formerly SQL Server ‘Kilimanjaro'), is intended to empower end users to make better decisions through self-service business intelligence, and help IT drive greater efficiency and reduce costs through new capabilities such as multi-server management and Master Data Services. The first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of SQL Server 2008 R2 will be available in the second half of 2009 and Microsoft is on track to ship SQL Server 2008 R2 in the first half of calendar year 2010. In 2010, Microsoft will also introduce complex event processing for real-time insight into streaming information. This will offers customers and partners faster time to solution and equal or better performance than competitive alternatives to gain insight from streaming information.

Composite Software, Inc., a leading provider of data virtualization software, and Motio, Inc., a leading provider of advanced sofware development lifecycle tools for IBM-Cognos business intelligence deployments, have begun shipping the new Composite BI Accelerator Appliance. Jointly developed by Composite and Motio, the BI Accelerator Appliance automates currently cumbersome tasks in the BI lifecycle. The initial release, a self-contained appliance, has been optimized for IBM-Cognos environments. The end-to-end solution automates steps throughout the BI process including upfront data discovery and ongoing maintenance of IBM-Cognos reporting environments.

5 Minute Briefing: Data Integration had a chance to visit the COLLABORATE 09 conference for Oracle users in Orlando during the week of May 4. We conducted interviews with both Ian Abramson, the president of the Independent Oracle Users Group (IOUG), and later with Raymond Payne, president of the Oracle Applications Users Group (OAUG).

At its recent SAPPHIRE 09 conference, SAP AG announced SAP Business Objects Explorer, a new software product that brings together search and navigation capabilities from the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio with SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse Accelerator (SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator) software, enabling customers to navigate mountains of business data at high speed and give them a clear view across their organizations. Another milestone in the company's acquisition and integration of Business Objects, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer will deliver the most significant and largest combination of SAP and Business Objects technology to date, according to the company.

Talend, a leading provider of open data integration software, has announced the availability of Talend Integration Suite MPX, a new edition of its Integration Suite Platform specially designed to help organizations attain high levels of performance and remove obstacles typically associated with traditional data integration processes.

Think About It

Both open source software (OSS) and cloud computing continue to experience strong interest and growth despite the economic downturn. Clearly, both provide the promise of reduced operating and software licensing costs.